THE ABBEY OF ST. GALL.*

THE Abbey of St. Gall owed its origin to an Irish disciple, of that name, of St. Columoanus, who, in the seventh century, penetrated into the recesses of the Helvetian mountains, and there fixed his abode in the midst of a pagan population. Under the famous abbot St. Othmar, who flourished in the time of Pepin, the monks received the Benedictine rule, and from that time the monastery rap dly grew in fame and pro-perity, so that in the ninth century it was regarded as the first religious house north of the Alps. It is with a sigh of that irrepressible regret called forth by the remembrance of a form of beauty that is dead and gone for ever, that the monastic historian hangs over the early chronicles of St. Gall. It lay in the midst of the savage Helvetian wilderness, an oasis of piety and civilization. Looking down from the craggy mountains, the passes of which open upon the southern extremity of the lake of Constance, the traveler would have stood amazed at the sudden apparition of that vast range of stately buildings which almost filled up the valley at his feet. Churches and clo'sters, the offices of a great abbey, buildings set apart for students and guests, workshops of every description, the forge, the bakehouse, and the mill, or rather mills, for there were ten of them, all in such active operation, that they every year required ten new millstones; and then the houses occupied by the vast numbers of artisans and workmen attached to the monastery; gardens, too, and vineyard creeping up the mountain slopes, and beyond them fields of waving corn, and sheep speckling the green meadows, and far away boats busily plying on the lake and carrying goods and passengers-what a world it was of life and activity; yet how unlike the activity of a town! It was, in fact, not a town, but a house,-a family presided over by a father, whose members were all knit together in the bonds of common fraternity. I know not whether the spiritul or the social side of such a religious colony were most fitted to rivet the attention. Descend into the valley, and visit all these nurseries of useful toil, see the crowds of rude peasants transformed into inte ligent artisans, and you will carry away the impression that the monks of St. Gall hd found out the secret of creating a world of happy Christian factories. Enter their church and listen to the exquisite modulations of those chants and sequences peculiar to the abbey which boasted of possessing the most scientific school of music in all Europe, visit their scriptorium, their library, and their school or the workshop where the monk Tutilo is putting the finishing touch to his wonderful copper images, and his fine altar frontals of gold and jewels, and you will think yourself in some intellectual and artistic academy. But look into the choir, and behold the hundred monks who form the community at their midnight office, and you will forget every thing, save the saintly aspect of those servants of God who shed abroad over the desert around them the good odor of Christ, and are the apostles of the provinces which own their gentle sway. You may quit the circuit of the abbey and plunge once more into the mountain region which rises beyond, but you will have to wander far before you find yourself beyond the reach of its softening humanizing influence. Here are distant cells and hermitages with their chapels, where the shepherds come for early mass; or it may be that there meets you, winding over the mountain paths of which they sing so sweet

Christian Schools and Scholars. Longman: 1867.

ly,* going up and down among the hills into the thick forests and the rocky hollows, a procession of the monks carrying their relics, and followed by a peasant crowd. In the schools you may have been listening to lectures in the learned, and even in the Eastern tongues; but in the churches, and here among the mountains, you will hear these fine classical scholars preaching plain truths, in barbarous idioms, to a rude race, who, before the monks came among them, sacrificed to the Evil One, and worshiped stocks and stones.

Yet, hidden away as it was among its crags and deserts, the abbey of St. Gall was almost as much a place of resort as Rome or Athens-at least to the learned world of the ninth century. Her schools were a kind of university, frequented by men of all nations, who came hither to fit themselves for all professions. You would have found here not monks alone and future scholastics, but courtiers, soldiers, and the sons of kings. The education given was very far from being exclusively intended for those aspiring to the ecclesiastical state; it had a large admixture of the secular element, at any rate in the exterior school. Not only were the Sacred sciences taught with the utmost care, but the classic authors were likewise explained; Cicero, Horace, Virgil, Lucan, and Terence were read by the scholars, and none but the very little boys presumed to speak in any thing but Latin. The subjects for their original compositions were mostly taken from Scripture and Church history, and having written their exercises they were expected to recite them, the proper tones being indicated by musical notes. Many of the monks excelled as poets, others cultivated painting and sculpture, and other exquisite cloistral arts; all diligently applied to the grammatical formation of the Tudesque dialect, and rendered it capable of producing a literature of its own. Their library in the eighth century was only in its infancy, but gradually became one of the richest in the world. They were in correspondence with all the learned monastic houses of France and Italy, from whom they received the precious codex, now of a Virgil or a Livy, now of the Sacred Books, and sometimes of some rare treatise on medicine or astronomy. They were Greek students, moreover, and those most addicted to the cultivation of the 'Cecropian Muse' were denominated the fratres Ellenici.' The beauty of their early manuscripts is praised by all authors, and the names of their best transcribers find honorable mention in their annals. They manufactured their own parchment out of the hides of the wild beasts that roamed through the mountains and forests around them, and prepared it with such skill that it acquired a peculiar delicacy. Many hands were employed on a single manuscript. Some made the parchment, others drew the fair red lines, others wrote on the pages thus prepared; more skillful hands put in the gold and the initial letters, and more learned heads compared the copy with the original text, this duty being generally discharged during the interval between matins and lauds, the daylight hours being reserved for actual transcription. Erasure, when necessary, was rarely made with the knife, but an erroneous word was delicately drawn through by the pen, so as not to spoil the beauty of the codex. Lastly came the binders, who inclosed the whole in boards of wood, cramped with ivory or iron, the Sacred Volumes being covered with plates of gold, and adorned with jewels.

Scandens et descendens inter montium confinia

Silvarum scrutando loca, valliumque concava.

(Hymn for the Procession of Relics. ap. Leibnitz.)

Among the masters and scholars, whose reputation shed a lustre on the annals of St. Gall, was Iso, styled by Ekkehard, a doctor magnificus,' whose pupils were in great demand by all the monasteries of Gall and Burgundy, and Moengall (or Marcellus, a nephew of the Irish bishop Marx, both of whom entered the cloister in 840, on their return from Rome), who extended, if he did not introduce the study of Greek into the interior school. Of the pupils of the latter, Notker, Ratpert, and Tutilo, were distinguished for rare scholarship, and in music, sculpture, and painting. Tutilo could preach both in Latin and Greek; and statuary of his workmanship adorned most of the finest churches in Germany. Ratpert succeeded master Iso in the external school, and was famous as a poet. But Notker was the best type of the culture of St. Gall-at once scholar, poet and musician.

It was the reputation of learning enjoyed by St. Gall which had first attracted him thither, for indeed, says Ekkehard, 'he was devoured with a love of grammar.' Like a true poet, he was keenly susceptible to the sights and sounds of nature, and loved to study her beautifulness' in that enchanted region of lakes and mountains. The gentle melancholy inseparable from exalted genius, which in him was increased by his exceeding delicacy of organization, found its expression in the wild and mystic melodies which he composed. The monotonous sound of a mill-wheel near the abbey suggested to him the music of the Media Vita,' the words being written whilst looking into a deep gulf over which some laborers were constructing a bridge. This ant phon became very popular in Germany, and was every year sung at St. Gall during the Rogation Processions But it was not as a poet or man of science that the 'Blessed Notker' was best known to posterity; profoundly learned in human literature, he yet, says Ekkehard, applied more to the Psalter than to any other book. Even in his own lifetime he was revered as a saint. He was master of the inferior and claustral school at the same time as Ratpert governed the exterior school, and kept up the same strict discipline, 'stripes only excepted.' The gentleness of his disposition peeps out in the fact that one of the faults he was hardest on in his pupils was the habit of bird's-nesting. He was always accessible; no hour of day or night was ever deemed unseasonable for a visit from any one who brought a book in their hands. For the sake of maintaining regular observance, he once forbade his disciples to whisper to him in time of silence, but the abbot enjoined him under obedience to let them speak to him whenever they would. Ratpert relates a story of him, which shows the opinion of learning and sanctity in which he was held. The emperor Charles, having on one occasion come to the monastery on a visit, he brought in his suite a certain chaplain, whose pride appears to have taken offense at the consideration with which his master treated the Blessed Notker. When they were about to depart, therefore, seeing the man of God sitting, as was his custom, with the Psalter in his hand, and recognizing him to be the same man who, on the previous day, had solved many hard questions proposed to him by Charles, he said to his companions, 'There is he who is said to be the most learned man in the whole empire. But if you like, I will make this most excellent wiseacre a laughing-stock for you, for I will ask him a question, which, with all his learning he will not be able to answer.' Curious to see what he would do, and how Notker would deal with him, they agreed to his proposal, and all went together to salute the master who courteously rose, and asked them what they

desired. Then said the unhappy man of whom we spoke, 'O most learned master, we are very well aware that there is nothing you do not know.. We therefore desire you to tell us, if you can, what God is now doing in heaven?' 'Yes,' replied Notker, I can answer that question very well. He is doing what he always has done, and what He is shortly about to do to thee, He is exalting the humble, and humbling the proud.' The scoffer moved away, while the laugh was turned against him. Nevertheless, he made light of Notker's words, and the prediction of evil which they seemed to contain regarding himself. Presently the bell rang for the king's departure, and the chaplain, mounting his horse, rode off with a great air in front of his master. But before he came to the gate of the city the steed fell, and the rider being thrown on his face, broke his leg. Abbot Hartmot hearing of this accident, desired Notker to visit the sick man, and pardon him, giving him his blessing. But the foolish chaplain protested that the misfortune had nothing to do with Notker's predic tion, and continued to speak of him with the greatest contempt. His leg, however, remained in a miserable state, until one night his friends besought Notker to come to him and aid him with his prayers. He complied willingly enough, and touching the leg, it was immediately restored; and by this lesson the chaplain learnt to be more humble for the future.

Notker was the author of various works, amongst others of a German translation of the Psalter, which Vadianus speaks of in his treatise on the 'Ancient Colleges of Germany,' and which he says is scarcely intelligible by reason of the excessive harshiness of the old Tudesque dialect. He gives a translation of the 'Creed,' and the 'Our Father,' from Notker's version, in which it is not difficult to trace the German idiom. Notker's German studies were yet more extensively carried on by his namesake, Notker Labeo, or the Thick-Lipped, who wrote many learned works in the vernacular, and was also a great classical scholar. He translated into German the works of Aristotle, Bo thius, and Martian Capella, and some musical treatises, all which are still preserved. His translation of St. Gregory's 'Morals' is lost. He is commemmorated in the chronicles of his House as 'the kind and learned master,' and whilst he presided over the claustral school, he educated a great many profound scholars, among whom was Ekkehard junior, the author of the chronicle 'De Casibus S. Galli,' and of the celebrated 'Liber Benedictionum.' This Ekkehard, at the request of the empress, transcribed Notker's Paraphrase of the Psalms' for her use with his own hand, and corrected a certain poem which his predecessor Ekkehard I. had written when a school-boy, and which was full of Tudesque barbarisms, such as the delicate ear of Ekkehard junior might not abide. He held that the barbarous idioms could not be translated into Latin without a great deal of painstaking. Think in German,' he would say to his scholars, 'and then be careful to render your thought into correct Latin.' There was yet a third Ekkehard whose memory is preserved in the annals of St. Gall under the surname of Palatinus. He was nephew to Ekkehard I., and presided over both the exterior and interior schools, and that with great success Ho made no distinction between noble and plebeian scholars, but employed those who had less talent for learning, in writing, painting, and other like arts. He was able to take down in short-hand the substance of any thing he heard, and two discourses are still preserved thus noted by his hand. He was afterwards most unwillingly summoned to the Court of Otho I., who appointed him his

chaplain and secretary, and tutor to his son Otho II. So venerated was this great man throughout Germany, that when he attended the council of Mentz in 976, six bishops rose up to salute their old master, all of them having been educated in the school of St. Gall. To this list of masters I must add the name of another Notker, who, from his strict observance of discipline, received the surname of Piperis-granum,' or the Peppercorn, though his pungency of temper did not prevent his brethren from commemmorating him in their obit uary as the 'Doctor benignissimus.' He was renowned as a physician, a painter, and a poet, and was also well skilled in music.

At the western extremity of the lake of Constance, just where it narrows towards the outlet of the Rhine, lies a green island sparkling like an emerald gem on the unruffled surface of the waters. There, half hidden amid the luxuriant foliage, you may still see the minster of that famous abbey called Angia by its Latin historians, but better known by its German name of Reichenau.

Reichenau had its own line of great masters, among whom Ermenric, who could do such generous justice to the excellence of others, was himself worthy to be reckoned. The most illustrious was, perhaps, the cripple Hermann Contractus, originally a pupil of St. Gall's, who is said to have prayed that he might not regain the use of his limbs, but that he might receive instead a knowledge of the Scriptures. He was master of Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and Arabic; he wrote treatises on history, poetry, ethics, astronomy, and mathematics; he calculated eclipses, and explained Aristotle, and, in spite of an impediment in his speech, his lectures were so learned that he had pupils from the most distant provinces of Italy. He set his own poems to music, made clocks and organs, and was as much revered for his sanctity as his universal genius. Many hymns and antiphons used by the Church are attributed to his pen, among others the Alma Redemptoris. But if Hermann was the most famous scholar of Reichenau, a yet greater celebrity, though of a different kind, attaches to the name of Meinrad. The story of his vocation to the eremitical life affords an apt illustration of the contemplative character already noticed as so frequently belonging to the early pedagogues; and as it presents us with an agreeable picture of a 'whole play-day' in the Dark Ages, we will give it as it stands in the pages of the monk Berno. Meinrad was the son of a Swabian nobleman of the house of Hollenzollern, and had studied in the monastic school under abbot Hatto and his own uncle Erlebald. When the latter became abbot he appointed Meinrad to the care of the school which was attached to a smaller house dependent on Reichenau, and situated at a spot called Bollingen, on the lake of Zurich. He accordingly removed thither, and had singular success with his scholars, whom he inspired with great affection by reason of his gentle discipline. He used to take them out for walking parties and fishing parties, into what Berno, his biographer, calls the wilderness,' a wilderness, however, which was adorned with a majestic beauty to which Meinrad was not insensible. One day he and his boys crossed the lake in a small boat, and landing on the opposite shore, sought for some quiet spot where they might cast their fishing-lines. Finding a little stream which flowed into the lake and gave

* Christian Schools and Scholars. Vol. I., p. 240.